BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY. 



291 



it habitually spends the winters in Essex County. This it is enabled to do from 

 its habit of eating seeds, chiefly those of the bayberry or myrtle from which the 

 bird takes its name. These berries are eaten by both old and young birds even 

 when insects are abundant, and during the colder months they appear to form 

 the entire diet. Of fifteen stomachs examined by me, one taken August 

 19th contained both seeds and insects; of four in September, two contained 

 insects alone, and two seeds and insects ; of three in October, two contained 

 insects and one seeds and insects ; of two in December, both contained seeds 

 only, while of five taken in the spring, all contained insects only. It is interest- 

 ing to note that Mr. B. S. Bowdish l states that he has found seeds in the stom- 

 achs of Yellow-rumped Warblers in Cuba, where insect life is of course very 

 abundant. It would seem, therefore, that a habit acquired by necessity may be 

 retained by choice, or that the adaptable character of the bird which prompted 

 it to try seeds as a food in the Tropics enabled it to stay in an insectless region. 

 Mr. Brewster - has reported these versatile birds as feeding on fallen and partly 

 crushed oranges in Florida. 



How long the Yellow-rumped Warbler has spent the winters as far north 

 as Essex County I do not know. Nuttall 3 says : " And being a hardy species, 

 passing parties continue with us in garden and woods till about the close of 

 November, feeding now almost exclusively on the myrtle-wax berries {Myrica 

 ceriferd), or on those of the Virginian juniper." Mr. C. J. Maynard tells me that 

 he never found the bird in winter in Essex County from 1868 to 1872. Allen 4 

 in his annotated list, in 1878, says: "A few known to winter on Cape Cod." 

 Minot, 5 writing in 1877, says : " I have several times, in December and January, 

 found them near Boston, in swamps, where they were feeding upon the berries, 

 and also among cedars." Putnam, 6 in 1856, in his Essex County list, says: 

 " Common in Spring and Autumn. Rare in winter." Mr. John Murdoch," in 

 1878, in an article on the Effects of the Warm Winter on the Migration of 

 Birds, says : " Mr. [C. W.] Townsend also saw as late as the first of January 

 small flocks of the Yellow-rumped Warbler .... in the woods, near the shore, 

 at Magnolia, Mass. This bird has been known to linger as late as the early part 

 of December on Cape Cod, but never so far north of the Cape." J. A. Jeffries, 8 



1 B. S. Bowdish : Auk, vol. 20, p. 195, 1903. 



2 Wm. Brewster : Auk, vol. 6, p. 279, 1889. 



3 Thomas Nuttall: A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada, vol. 1, p. 

 362, 1832. 



4 J. A. Allen: Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 10, p. 13, 1878. 



6 H. D. Minot: The Land-birds and Game-birds of New England, p. 125, 1877. 

 6 F. W. Putnam : Proc. Essex Inst., vol. 1, p. 207, 1856. 



7 John Murdoch : Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, vol. 3, p. 76, 1878. 

 8 J. A. Jeffries: Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, vol. 4, p. 1 18, 1879. 



